Page 94 - AVN January 2016

|By Brady Jansen
COMPANY PROFILE | Iconic Effort
Icon Male forges its own path, previews new twists in 2016
Since debuting with Forgive Me
Father in 2014, Icon Male has been
on a roll with its focus on story-
based porn. Director Nica Noelle’s
emphasis on romance and dialogue
has carved a unique space in the
gay male space with series like
Forbidden Encounters, Fathers and
Sons and Schoolboy Fantasies (the
recent Volume 3 is the studio’s 31st
release).
“It was a pretty amazing year,”
says Noelle, who also writes her
films. “I guess the first thing that
comes to mind is seeing how Icon
Male has influenced gay adult film,
GAYVN
with so many romance/quasi-incest
titles popping up. We emerged
as a very unique studio, but that
also brought a lot of scrutiny and
criticisms, too, which I guess is only
natural. My subject matter, the way
I shoot, the fact that I often use
performers who are considered ‘gay
for pay’ and some people take issue
with that...suddenly we were under
the microscope. It seems like Icon is
a little polarizing: you either love us
or you hate us. Luckily it’s mostly
been love, and the gay fans have
been very welcoming.”
Mile High Media Vice President
Jon Blitt says the studio is doing
incredible well, noting that the
audience took to the material
immediately.
“We have not seen a lull. When
the member site launched, Buddy
Profits was shocked at the instant
success, we exceeded all projections.
Icon fills a void in gay porn with our
emphasis on passion and romance
with a forbidden element, and Nica
is a master at this. Her ability to
create eroticism out of topics that
some see as too taboo set her apart
in the industry. Through her leading
the studio and the performers’
ability to capture the nature of
our films, we are immensely
successful.”
Noelle notes that casting has
proved to be more important for her
than anything else.
“It doesn’t matter what the story
is or how much or how little time
we have to shoot it, the cast makes
the difference between creating
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a masterpiece and walking into a nightmare. I’ve learned that
depending on the performer, shooting my type of scenes is
either incredibly gratifying to them or it’s a pain in the butt.
I’ve also learned that sometimes I have to live with not getting
the result I’d hoped for. So many things can go wrong on set
that end up costing time and money, and we work on such strict
deadlines. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can.”
performance he gave in My Sister’s Lover. It was his last film
so he could have just phoned it in, but instead he did the
opposite and really went in deep—no pun intended!”
Noelle says she wants to explore more coming-of-age
themes—guys finding themselves and discovering their
sexuality—as well as look at love triangles in a deeper way.
“We’ll still do our staple faux-incest titles, but I have a lot of
She adds that she’s trying to communicate with performers a
little more: “It’s never been my strong suit to be the gregarious,
other ideas, too. Usually when I come up with something, Mile
High allows me to try it out and see how the fans like it, and
hang-out type of director, whooping it up on set. I’ve learned
that performers really want to spend more time talking to me
and they want me to be a little more accessible, which can
be hard for me sometimes. But if they feel more personally
supported by me they give a better performance.”
The director says that from her earliest days as a porn
director, she always kept a little stable of anchor performers that
she uses on a regular basis—people who can do very specific
things in terms of the kind of emotion and intensity they bring
to their scenes.
“Those performers don’t grow on trees. That’s why you’ll
continue to see Nick Capra, Adam Russo, Billy Santoro and Wolf
Hudson, to name a few, in Icon Male scenes. We’ve added some
new staple players though, such as Rodney Steele who is just an
sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s a flop. But whether a
title succeeds or fails it tells me something about the audience,
so I keep learning about them all the time, whether it’s
through success or failure.”
Overall, the fans have been amazing, she says. “I get long,
heartfelt letters, a lot of them are very erudite and like to
analyze the movies and ask me a lot of questions about certain
scenes. Peers have probably been a little less friendly, but it
may be that I’m not the most approachable person and don’t
make much of an effort to get into the fold. But Chi Chi LaRue
has been very kind and encouraging.”
Noelle adds that she usually develops the dialogue by having
a certain performer in mind when she writes the script—then
imagining what he would say in the different scenarios she
amazing person and performer.”
Noelle cites Steele’s pairing with Ian Levine in Baby Boy as a
recent standout, a film she had wanted to shoot for a while but
held off because she couldn’t find the perfect performer for the
role of the older man who falls in love with a much younger
one. She also loved the Nick Capra/Brendan Patrick paring in
Forbidden Encounters 3 (“That scene was so powerful and tender
and so significant to both performers. It was one of those scenes
that made me feel privileged to do what I do”).
The director notes that her performers like the idea of
approaching their scenes with a sense of artistry—they are
cast for their passion and thoughtfulness, and want to create
something memorable and real. Also new to the fold are
Ethan Slade (“he has a lot of depth and soul”), Max Sargent
(“fantastic”) and Josh Stone, “who everyone fell madly in
love with. I was also really excited to shoot Tommy Defendi’s
last feature before he retired. I’m so proud of him for the
wants to present.
“It’s very hard for me to come up with a story if I can’t
picture the characters speaking and reacting. That’s why
when people say to me, ‘Why don’t you write novels?’ I’m
like, ‘Because I can’t just make people up.’ How do I know
what some imaginary person would do or say? I’ve got to be
thinking of someone real, who already exists.”
Noelle anticipates the production schedule will remain at
two movies a month. She’s also excited that Dana Vespoli, a
fellow Mile High director, was shooting her first Icon Male title
in December—with Noelle wrapping her first title in four years
for lesbian line Sweetheart Video. “We asked Mile High if we
could trade off studio titles every now and then, and they said
we could. So I’m excited to see what Dana can bring to the
Icon Male brand and to the gay porn genre overall. It’s great to
have another artist to bounce ideas off of, and as you all know
she’s really a spectacular filmmaker.”